E3: The Blockbuster Generation

Hollywood is rejoicing as cinema-goers flock back to the big screen this summer. In recent years the movie theatre experience looked as if it was going the way of the music business, but now the 2015 summer of excess is serving up the blockbusters.

The current box office takings merely provide the warm up act to this winter’s releases where we’ll see the long-awaited extension to the Star Wars franchise following on from James Bond’s November action in SPECTRE.

I have a point to make here, relating to the millennials amongst us (the kids born this millennium) and my time spent at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in LA this week. Having sat through Avengers: Age of Ultron last month, I came away feeling a little despondent and wondering which came first… the story-less all action ADHD blockbuster or the constantly distracted audience?

I had an interesting conversation in the back of a cab last year. I was heading to the airport having just delivered my TEDx talk in Athens, before jetting off to LA for the next big adventure.

I say the talk was interesting, but I mean ‘challenging’. My esteemed car-sharer was a seasoned TED speaker, with years of experience in the field of human behaviour. He held the view that kids today are bombarded with too much information, especially of the digital variety. He believed that mobile devices should be strictly rationed as they cause more problems for kids than they solve.

I told him that I agreed in principal but ‘all things in moderation’ is a better approach than insisting on a non-digital solution. You don’t filter the noise out by turning it all off, you learn to live with it, categorise it and make use of it.

I’d be the first to admit that my kids don’t lead a normal life. The very nature of my job exposes them to a new piece of tech hardware or delivery platform on a regular basis. They are a fabulous sounding board for the reactions of the next generation of consumers as they’re quick to dismiss and not afraid to speak their minds. They have none of the social or business diplomacy to worry about – it just works or it doesn’t.

They’ve been fascinated by and indifferent to various smart watches and VR headsets over the past couple of years and it’s easy to see that a constant supply of digital watch faces will appeal more than garage door openers and short-form film and games are perfect for VR.

At E3, the audience is hungry for new games, but still prefers the familiarity of a sequel and will happily immerse themselves in a single game for hours on end if the content offers enough variety and a continual challenge.

Minecraft is already huge but Microsoft demonstrated a whole new level of immersion at E3 – on HoloLens. If you’re not familiar with this new platform, it’s Microsoft’s foray into the augmented reality market. projecting seemingly real content into the wearer’s field of vision. I’ll be getting hands-on today and will update this article in a few hours.

So where does this leave our kids? Lost in a digital world of shock and awe, content and distraction? Yes, all of the above and it’s brilliant.

I saw the Disney movie Tomorrowland a couple of weeks ago and I loved it. It touched a creative and technological nerve and moved me to write this article. It’s not an explosion-a-second blockbuster like Age of Ultron as it manages to combine an all-action adventure with something subtly cerebral.

It’s a film with a message. Don’t lose your sense of wonder, investigate new technology and be creative with it. Use it to push boundaries, not live within them. We wouldn’t have reached the moon or built electric cars without a commitment to improve the world in which we live. We can also have fun whilst doing it!

It’s our responsibility to encourage kids to live with and use technology to their advantage, rather than distance themselves from it, and a brighter future.

Self Aware, Self Controlled

We yearn for independence, yet struggle to manage increasing levels of communication and distraction. So where do we draw the line and what lies in store for our connected future?

At LeWeb in Paris last December, the term ‘Enchanted Objects’ was used to describe Wearable Technology. It’s a nice phrase and covers the interaction and solution as well as the hardware.

Others stated that wearables were all about data, its delivery and the results. However, that's like saying everyone bases their smartphone, tablet or laptop buying decision on the operating system alone. The smartwatch market has to deliver on all counts: to look and feel special AND tell the time for at least 24 hours.

Not a great start for the Apple Watch with a maximum of 18 hours then? Not perfect by any means but Apple’s new device (and the consumer/media scrum surrounding it) is likely to light the blue touch paper under the wearable tech industry.

To make the point, Wearables and Jeremy Clarkson captured a lot of the headlines last week, with Apple’s Spring keynote revealing the features, price and launch date of the Apple Watch plus the Wearable Technology Show bringing the great and the good of the industry together at ExCeL in London, where I was fortunate enough to speak on the opening panel and host the second day of the Augmented and Virtual Reality track.

So what can we expect from our Enchanted Objects in the not-too-distant future? CES and MWC offered a raft of products and platforms, so I’ve highlighted four key areas where devices, sensors and data need to play nice to deliver a seamless (and often invisible) experience. We don’t want to do more things, we need things to do more.

The Car

The temptation is to use the screens we carry as extensions of the dashboard. Don’t. Automotive designers spend years training and honing their skills. They design and build an ergonomically sound environment, with information displayed at the right size in the right place. As soon as you add a randomly-placed small phone screen or attempt to glance at your wrist, all the good work is undone.

Leave the screen, continue the journey – that’s the message to drive home (no pun intended). Our connected devices should talk to each other without our prompting, be aware of their surroundings and our habits. Mid-track streamed music and telephone conversations are already transferrable when we sit in some manufacturers’ vehicles. Social channel conversation and navigation on foot then on wheels are the next step. Take a half-written Twitter message, finish and send it via voice instructions and have the responses fed back through audio rather than visual channels.

The autonomous cars of the ‘future’ are with us already, they’re just not available to buy yet. The issues over screen distraction will take a back seat (again, no pun, etc) so we’ll find more to keep us occupied, but that won’t be car-specific – it will be the same interaction and distractions we experience outside the vehicle! I’m not saying anything about Apple Car, yet…

The Mall

Location, location, location. The infrastructure still has some way to go but our devices need to talk to retailers before we even leave the house, then the location-specific content kicks in via GPS or iBeacon. Find our parking space, log our arrival time and reimburse our fees if we’ve spent the right amount in the right places.

When we’re in, direct us to offers we’ll find attractive from brands we follow, guide us to the right in-store concession, then allow us to pay for it or order it if there’s no stock available. Also offer alternative local stores to continue the experience.

This should be a brand-agnostic experience. We need to see everything relevant as no one wants to fill their phone or watch with apps for each brand or service.

The House

“Why is the fridge empty?” “because it forgot to reorder groceries”. How long before we’re blaming our devices for the things we used to take responsibility for? This is an important section to cover in the ‘Internet of Things (IoT)’ but manufacturers have made a lot of progress here, we just haven’t adopted it all yet. Our phones can tell our thermostats we’re nearly home ensuring optimal temperature upon our arrival, saving energy and avoiding discomfort. We can control all the lights with an app and the full entertainment system can deliver playlisted content from dusk till dawn.

I have a wifi-enabled kettle controlled by an app. Do I need it? No. Do I want it? Yes, but I’m not normal. The challenge ahead is the same faced by auto manufacturers – what to leave out. We can automate almost anything but some things just don’t need to be connected.

The Event

Let’s talk music. You buy an album, or maybe you don’t. You stream the album without paying for it, you follow your favourite band but where’s the depth? Well, there’s the concert but this is hardly a regular occurrence so the future for connecting artists with their audiences lies in the ability of devices to extend the main event throughout our daily routines.

Audio watermarking offers an incredible opportunity to not only deliver stunning live light shows at venues and through second screen interaction, but also monitor listening habits and reward fans based on music played and ‘collected’.

Connected devices should steer us to the music we want, help us buy, build or consume, then lead us to performances with specific ‘money-can’t-buy’ rewards to keep us coming back for more.

Voice activation is one input method that spans all the above. In a perfect world, this form of interaction could offer the best solution for hands-free, platform and device agnostic progress. In reality, we have social boundaries to cross and habits to break before verbal outbursts on train platforms or in the office are acceptable. It’s less of an issue in the home or car, but we’re not happy to shout at our devices in public. I give it five years, but let’s avoid innovation for innovation’s sake.

2015 Shorty Awards: A Year of Living Dangerously

It’s been a whole year since my last Shorty Awards campaign. Here I am again, but everything has changed! The Apps category is no more so I’m championing an entirely new category… #Innovation.

Last year I reached the final and headed to New York only to miss out on the night. You think the Oscars are competitive, the Shorties are even more cutthroat!

This time, I’d love your votes in a category that will only exist if we work together. There isn’t currently an Innovation category but if I receive enough votes, it’s possible the Real-Time Academy will make it official.

There's no 'I' in Shorty Awards but it is all about the individual. Having said that, the cutting-edge innovation only happens thanks to the brilliant Brandwidth team.

Here’s the link to take you directly to the voting screen, just double check the drop-down box shows ‘Other’ and the text contains the hashtag #Innovation (plus your reason for voting for me of course). We can do this! 

Add your vote! < THIS IS THE REALLY IMPORTANT LINK TO VOTE

If you need more convincing, here’s the campaign video featuring Brandwidth’s Star Wars Scene Maker app for Lucasfilm, the incredible Maleficent multi-touch book for Disney, the Bernhoft Islander HD music app, my TEDx Athens 4D app experience and my Oculus Rift Light Saber battle with Apptain America at Silicon Beach.

Oh, and Olivia and Hattie in their own virtual worlds…

To add even more depth, here’s the summary of my Shorty Awards Interview and my thoughts following defeat in New York last year.

Thanks!

Rebel With a Cause

A rebel… every business needs one, from tech to finance, automotive to entertainment. Someone compelled to swim against the tide, or in reality, ahead of it.

To many, the idea of a disruptive influence in the midst of a well-oiled machine is the last thing they’d want to encourage. After all, there’s no ‘I’ in team, right? There is a big one in Impact and Instinct and two whoppers in Innovation.

Consider for a second some of the great disruptors, from Galileo and Socrates to Darwin and Jobs, we remember the plaudits and success but they faced their fair share of obstruction, ridicule and uncertainty. They stood their ground (often to their own detriment) but achieved greatness – not for themselves, but the advancement of mankind.

Their contribution to the world we live in was only given meaning through a willingness, a compulsion, to run before they could walk. They faced failure but learnt from this and channeled their energy into ever greater statements of intent.

The Apple ad from 1997 perfectly summed up this sentiment – “The ones who think they are crazy enough to change the world… are the ones who do”.

This spot was released to initiate the Think Different campaign in 1997. Here's to the reasons we stick with Apple through the ups and downs.

Now, I’m not claiming for a second that I have any right to share a platform with the greats mentioned above but I am a rebel and proud of it. 

My wife used to say the words to the Garth Brooks song ‘Standing Outside the Fire’ could have been written for me… “life is not tried, it is merely survived when you’re standing outside the fire”. It’s true, it’s hot in here, at times frickin’ uncomfortable and rarely involves sleep. It’s more rewarding than simply keeping your head down and merely getting on with it.

There is a careful balance to be achieved here. A business formed entirely of rebels is doomed to failure. My ‘Ultimate Agency’ post from 2010 is an example of a fantasy creative agency but imagine a top table featuring the likes of the late Steve Jobs and Wally Olins, to Stephen Fry, Mitch Joel, Marc Newson and Thomas Heatherwick. The Ultimate Agency would descend into anarchy without an army of ‘responsible adults’

My talk at TEDx Athens last weekend focused on the importance of balance. I spoke about the need for ‘seamless narrative’ and how without a clear understanding of this, you were unable to create ‘meaningful disruption’.

I gave the capacity audience their first taste of my rebellious disruption by equipping every delegate at the stunning Onassis Cultural Centre with our Brandwidth Innovation Lab app (iOS and Android) the audio-watermarked musical opening to my presentation triggered the digital performance, with each phone or tablet screen turning into an individual pixel to deliver a stunning light show – a 4D experience culminating with each handset vibrating as one for the final crescendo.

In the grand scheme of things, this was the equivalent to a digital firework display or waving lighters in the air at a concert. I still had a serious point to make. Communication on every level, on every device, no matter what kind of brand, business or individual needs to master the basic art of seamless narrative. Conversation and a clear personality needs a manageable change of pace. Merely shouting at an audience doesn’t work when everyone adopts the same volume or this just becomes white noise. Maintaining consistency is essential when adding impact to the meaningful messages.

My presentation is now available on Slideshare (although I had to convert this from Keynote to Power frickin’ point to upload) but please download for the full experience containing the embedded audio and video.

Disrupting Seamless Narrative from Dean Johnson

Here's the full TEDx video of my talk, complete with app-controlled 4D light show.

TEDx Athens was a wonderful experience, run by a passionate team lead by Dimitrios Kalavros-Gousiou and I was fortunate to catch some of the city sights thanks to Big Olive City Walks.

I wish I could have stayed longer but I’ve already flown from Athens to London, to San Francisco to Cupertino to LA in the past 48 hours, leaving disruption in my wake.

What a rebel.